Eight years ago, Dr. Andrew Thomson was diagnosed with cancer. He thought he had no more than six months to live. But family members knew if anything would prolong the life of their relentlessly energetic father, it would be another challenge.
Shortly after he retired from medicine, that challenge arrived–in the form of a capital campaign for Chicago’s new symphony center.
In 1994, Dr. Thomson applied his well-tuned fundraising skills to the job of co-chairman of The Campaign for a Symphony Center. The four-year effort raised $112.7 million to finance the renovation of Orchestra Hall and the construction of an expanded music complex for classical, jazz, pop and world music performances.
The Symphony Center opened to critical acclaim in October– and family members believe heading up such a successful drive helped extend the life and spirit of Dr. Thomson, who died Tuesday of cancer in Rush North Shore Medical Center in Skokie. A resident of Evanston, he was 72.
“After he lived the first year, we thought maybe he’s stronger than we think,” said his daughter, Mary Renner. “Then the campaign for the new Symphony Center came along, and it was just the challenge he needed. It was a great replacement for his medical practice, and he moved into it in high gear.
“We’re convinced that’s what kept him alive for these last eight years,” she said.
A CSO trustee since 1980 and a life trustee since 1992, Dr. Thomson was a longtime fan of the symphony and was thrilled to see the new center get such a warm reception.
“To him, it was a dream come true,” his daughter said. “He was particularly pleased to see it become a center that was open not only to regular concertgoers but a center that was for all lovers of music throughout the city.”
A native of Gary, Ind., Dr. Thomson attended Dartmouth College before serving in the Army medical department in World War II. He got his bachelor’s and medical degree from Indiana University and joined the medical staff at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in 1963.
He was president of the medical staff from 1983 through 1985 and was elected to the board of trustees in 1988. At the time of his retirement in 1993, the medical center established an endowed professorship in the name of Dr. Thomson and his wife, Peggy.
Dr. Thomson was no stranger to major fundraising campaigns when he took on the CSO effort.
He was the chairman of the medical staff campaign committee at Rush, which recently raised $8.2 million for the medical school, worked on medical center capital campaigns for Indiana University and Dartmouth College and was a benefactor to Kenyon College in Ohio. At Indiana, he completed a $211 million campaign for the School of Medicine and established a chair for research in prostate cancer.
Dr. Thomson was also a leader behind several other community charities, including a homeless youth shelter program called the Night Ministry.
The Night Ministry program had been serving homeless teens in Chicago for years but did not have a shelter until Dr. Thomson approached the group in 1990.
With support from an anonymous family foundation that he had been managing for a former patient, Dr. Thomson helped raise funds for a new shelter for the Night Ministry. He remained active with the group by becoming a member of Night Ministry’s board.
“He was a great man in a very quiet way,” said Tom Behrens, Night Ministry’s director. “He came to us and offered us a significant amount of funding, and he really had a lot of faith in us.”
His daughter said the Night Ministry program was dear to Dr. Thomson’s heart.
“I think he saw these young people at an age when he could really have an opportunity to change the course of their lives,” she said.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Peggy; three sons, David, Scott and Robert; and five grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Monday at 3 p.m. at St. James Episcopal Cathedral, 65 E. Huron St., Chicago.
